


wearing thin, wearing me down to my knees

by reginamea



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, F/M, Gen, Pre-SQ, Vignette, non-explicit CS, post-4x01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-29
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-19 06:01:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2377433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reginamea/pseuds/reginamea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma Swan may be the Savior but her sense of prioritizing appears to have gone badly askew since the breaking of the Curse. Then again, maybe it has always been off-kilter. Because why Swan feels this continuous need to keep running after the Queen is beyond Hook. </p><p>- quick post-4x01 thingy Idek where this came from tbh</p>
            </blockquote>





	wearing thin, wearing me down to my knees

**Author's Note:**

> note for CS shippers: I don't want to tread on your toes if you should end up here, but this is not a Captain Swan fic so I'd advise you not to read this
> 
> and for SQ shippers: you, my dear Swen, can go ahead and read this, because Hook is indeed more perceptive than some people give him credit for and he has indeed noticed that there is a certain tension between Swan and the Queen so ... this is Swan Queen-ish jfyi

"Be patient," she tells him, and he tries, he really tries, because he knows that she is worth it. She was worth his Jolly Roger, _is_ worth everything, worth all the time he has. Because he loves her. Because he loves her, he tells himself - _be patient_ \- and he sets it up like a mantra in his head.

_be patient_

_you have all the time in the world_

_be patient_

_be patient_

So he watches her turn around and walk away, once again, her feet kicking at loose rocks and sticks on the forest ground. He watches her leave until her form is nothing but a dark dot against the sparse foliage of the forest, then vanishes suddenly amongst the trees. He cannot be sure of her destination but he can have a good guess about where she is off to, who she is off to see, once again.

Emma Swan may be the Savior but her sense of prioritizing appears to have gone badly askew since the breaking of the Curse.

Then again, maybe it has always been off-kilter. Because, Hook muses as he finally turns around and trudges back to town, why Swan feels this continuous need to keep running after the Queen is beyond him. There was a strange tension in her body, before, at the diner, high-strung muscles taut underneath his grip as he halted her momentum, prevented her from going after that woman, and he could tell of the emotions warring inside her, pulling her between Hook's grasp, Henry's eyes, and Regina's retreating form.

At the memory, his good hand balls into a fist at his side until it turns as white as the remains of snow still lingering on the ground at his feet.

_be patient_

He thinks back, to _before_ , to Zelena and to the time spent in Neverland and even to before that, when he was not yet quite aware of the complicated net of familial relations between Swan and the Queen, to Greg and Tamara and to Cora, and he thinks of the animosity between the two women, the wariness, the yelling. But he also remembers the raw emotions bubbling barely concealed under the surface, the tears, the desperation, and it is this side of Swan that he is seeing now as she proclaims to feeling guilty, too guilty, over Regina.

Too guilty for what, he ponders as his feet carry him to the apartment of the Charmings and, if he is being honest, at least with himself, he is not even surprised to find that Emma is not there. So he turns around and makes his way back to Granny's, all the way wondering when Emma Swan's happiness became dependent on the happiness of Regina Mills. Fate, it seems, is a fickle fiend indeed.

 _Be patient_ , he repeats to himself, _be patient_ , again and again, as he climbs up the stairs, as he slumps across his bed, as he stares at the pale peach-colored ceiling and remembers the despondent look in Emma's eyes, the down-turned corners of her mouth, the small smile she attempted for his sake but that quickly cracked under her admission of guilt like the cracks along the ceiling above his head.

_be patient_

He closes his eyes and wills his mind to stop whispering about curses and evils and sons and fate.

Later, much later, when it is dark already, there is a knock at the door and he finds himself reluctant to open even though he knows exactly who is waiting on the other side. He gets up nevertheless and opens the door to find, surprise, surprise, but not really, Emma Swan on the other side of it, her feet shifting under her body as though she is considering which instinct to give in to, fight or flight. She chooses fight, it appears, this time.

"David said you came by to see me," she says, hands coiled into the pockets of her leather jacket. "Was there something you wanted?"

He almost laughs because - does he really need a reason to come see her? Have they not kissed? And kissed again? Have they not both admitted that there is something between them, something worth pursuing, worth waiting for? He wonders if he has got it all wrong. If Swan thinks like this, if she still feels like he has to have a reason to see her other than simply wanting to see her? If she does ... well then, how loudly does that speak about any feelings she might have, or not have, for him?

"Nothing really, Swan," he replies and swipes a grins across his face as he leans in and against the doorway, a mock display of cocky philandering. " Just wanted to see how you were doing. But as your father so graciously informed me ... you were unavailable. Undoubtedly policing the town for the master of the snow monster?"

Once more the tension coils tightly in her body, strumming through her limbs, through her every muscle, until her body is one fluttering mass of bones and nerves, feet shifting, lips stretching, eyes narrowing, like a bird ready to take flight.

"Something like that," she responds, eventually, and it is confirmation enough for him that she has been to see the Queen. Trapped in the confined space between his body and the door frame, his fingers attempt to curl into a fist once more and the pressure is painful on his knuckles and it feels good, so good, it hurts in a way that distracts him from the buzzing ache deep in his chest.

And so he grins, no, smiles, and says, "well, Swan, now that we've cleared that up ..." and leaves the sentence hanging, open, and she grabs it for the out he is offering, grabs it like her fluttering wings are in danger of breaking and not his heart.

"Yeah, sorry, you were probably asleep already," she mumbles and vaguely throws a thumb over her shoulder. "I'm just gonna head home then."

She does not try to kiss him before she leaves and he is strangely grateful for it. Once again he follows her retreating form for as long as he can. Then he closes the door and turns back toward his bed. In the dark, the pale peach color has turned gray and the cracks in the ceiling loom strikingly dark above his head as he settles down once more.

He is, indeed, much more perceptive than people may think. At least when it comes to Emma Swan. He just wonders how perceptive Swan herself is when it comes to herself and her loved ones, when it comes to herself and a certain Queen.

 

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> ... trying to get into Hook's head was ... interesting ... definitely


End file.
